


An Old Wives Tale

by Menzosarres



Series: Swan Queen Week: Summer 2014 [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Prompt: Accidental Marriage, Prompt: Accidental Stimulation, Swan Queen Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 21:47:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1794286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menzosarres/pseuds/Menzosarres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the season three finale, Emma worries over how eerily normal things have become in Storybrooke. Unable to get a good night’s sleep, she asks Regina to keep teaching her magic, and things are going fairly well until Emma’s impulsiveness brings about a sort of magical contact Regina didn’t even think existed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These drabbles, shorts, and one-or-two-shots were all written for Swan Queen Week on tumblr. These are Days 4 and 7.

It had taken two and a half weeks of groveling to earn some semblance of normalcy with Regina, but letting Henry stay with her through the entire process had helped, and Regina had eventually offered as close to forgiveness as she ever did with a muttered, “Being angry with you is like kicking a puppy.” 

Since then, Storybrooke had been… peaceful. Almost unnaturally so. Not that Emma was complaining. If the worst she had to worry about was the guilt she felt every time she met Regina’s eyes and every time she shared an afternoon with Hook, well, it sure beat portal hopping and crossing her fingers that her son wasn’t dead yet. Still, as much as she longed to relish this break in the mania of the latest chapter of her life, part of her knew better than to let down her guard, and that part of her was making it difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

She managed to blame the fact that she still hadn’t invited Hook to stay the night on her exhaustion, at least to him. At least out loud. Her head was telling her a different story, however; one that started high on adrenaline from a journey to the past and ended now, now that the rush had worn off and all of Killian Jones’s less desirable traits had surfaced once again in her memory. 

Emma had given him the chance to convince her he was worth her time, the chance he’d been begging for, and it had gone about exactly as expected: a lot of kissing, a lot of beard, and not much of a connection at all.

Her stress couldn’t have helped their haphazard attempt at dating, but she couldn’t seem to shake her worry. Emma knew how fairy tales were supposed to end – happily ever after – and this didn’t feel like that ending yet. Robin and Marian might have come to the end of their cycle of misery, but considering her own discontent with Hook and Regina’s abject misery, Emma knew this peace had to be an illusion. After one too many dreams of Henry disappearing into a crackling green mist or a shrinking swirl of purple, Emma found herself pacing back and forth on the path to the mayor’s home, wondering exactly how crazy she must be to even consider this.

She eventually worked up the courage to knock, but when no one answered for quite some time, she turned to go, only to hear the locks finally begin unlatching behind her.

“Ms. Swan. What on earth could possess you to come creeping around my yard at three in the morning?”

Glancing up from Regina’s irritated and sleep-worn face, she finally noticed just how dark the sky was. “Ah, sorry. I… um… thought it was closer to six.”

Clearly exasperated, Regina pulled open the door further, revealing a set of silken sleepwear with a terrycloth robe thrown hastily overtop. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you have a good reason to be here.” She started off down the hall, turning to call over her shoulder, “Are you coming?”

Embarrassingly nervous and suddenly aware of how absurd this was, Emma followed. “I’m sorry; this is probably going to sound ridiculous but… I’m freaking out about how quiet everything is.”

Emma had followed Regina all the way into her study by the time she managed to give voice to that much of her reasoning. To her surprise, Regina’s answering frown seemed to be one of agreement. “Though I don’t see how your worry involves  _me_ , I will say I’m inclined to agree.” She shook her head. “It hasn’t been this boring in Storybrooke since before you showed up to break the curse.”

“I… um… I didn’t mean to suggest that you were… ah… why I was worried,” Emma hastily added. She knew better than to even imply that Regina might be the cause of another unfortunate incident. Even if she only intended to reference it as an allusion to all the crazy relatives the mayor seemed to have, Regina was only too quick to assume everyone was sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for her to go evil again. Hell, some of them actually were. Just not Emma. “I just… I was wondering if we could start working with magic stuff again. You know. You. Teaching me.”  

Both of Regina’s eyebrows went up; never a good sign.

“You came here at three in the morning to ask for a magic lesson? And then you call it  _stuff_? And what, did you just leave Henry alone somewhere?”

“Of course not!” Emma replied, instantly defensive. Every time Regina needled about her parenting habits she had to forcibly keep herself from flying off the handle. Some part of her knew most of Regina’s snide remarks were just her own insecurity about no longer being the only mother Henry had, but it was hard not to take offense when it sounded as though, after all this time, Regina thought Emma still couldn’t be trusted to take care of their kid. “David and Mary Margaret got home from the baby’s checkup at the hospital yesterday. Henry’s with the whole gang.”

Regina gave a frustrated sigh, massaging her temples with two fingers. “I didn’t mean to snap. I haven’t exactly been enjoying the best night’s sleep these past two weeks.”

Startled by Regina’s candid response and how closely it mirrored her own emotional state, Emma stared at her for a bit longer than strictly polite. She looked about as tired as Emma felt. “And here I am waking you up at three,” Emma muttered.

Regina shrugged. “Yes, well, you’re here now… and I doubt either of us is going to get back to sleep.”

“Is that a yes?” Emma asked, cautiously hopeful.

Regina’s lips twitched, as though trying to avoid slipping into a smile. “Sometimes you act so much like Henry I…” She blinked, the oddly soft expression on her face quickly fading back into a more professional front. “Anyway, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t do to have you… jumping off cliffs every time you need to get your magic working.”

Emma snorted. “I seem to remember it was a bridge… and I had a little help taking that particular dive. I’m pretty sure in court what you did would count as attempted manslaughter, not suicide.”

This time, Regina couldn’t stop the smile from flashing across her face. “Not the worst count on my record.”

Emma laughed, surprising herself with the genuine reaction to Regina’s caustic humor. Even after she had been reluctantly forgiven for taking Robin away from her, their few encounters had been desperately strained, and Emma had nearly forgotten how nice the time had been when they were real allies, almost friends.

“So. I’d have to say every time I plan a leisurely, basic lesson with you, Ms. Swan, we end up jumping head first into things you shouldn’t have been taught until you had more control.”

Emma shrugged apologetically.

“Even though it probably won’t make you feel any safer, you really do need to learn the basics. If the only time you can work magic is in the middle of some pressing danger…”

And so it went.

By the time the sun had begun peeking its earliest rays over the windowsill, Emma had endured her share of lectures, but had nearly perfected the hand-held fire Regina so favored – though the Mayor had forbidden her from trying any fireballs in her house – and had been able to move everything from the apples in a bowl on the table to the table itself with little more than a mental push and a wave of her hand. It was exhilarating.

Regina had been demonstrating alongside her. When Emma asked about the different colors of their magic, Regina began explaining the different appearance of her particular brand of purple light depending on the spell. Watching the odd spark of violet fire as Regina directed it to do her bidding, Emma felt an old curiosity rising in the back of her mind.  

“What about your magic? Could I move that?”

Just as she had when she had lifted the apple, Emma directed her own pale blue energy towards the purple light around Regina’s fingers. Honestly, she didn’t expect anything to happen, so the odd jolt that raced up her spine made her lose focus and break the brief connection. 

Regina’s reaction was even more startling. She sat bolt upright, gasping aloud, and the light around her hands flickered before flaring more brightly. “That—that’s not supposed to happen, that… it’s an old wives tale!”

Even not knowing what the mayor was talking about, Emma could see the irony in that statement. “Says the fairy tale character.”

“No,” Regina hissed. “You don’t understand. My magic is  _not_  a physical thing. We can manipulate things  _using_  magic. No one can manipulate another person’s power, only overcome or cancel it.”  As she spoke, she wrung her hands together, tugging and brushing at them, even going so far as to blow air at them, as though trying to put out a fire. “I can’t stop it,” she gasped out, wincing as the purple glow began to slip slowly up along her arms and spark out into the air between them.

“You can’t put your magic out?” Emma asked, voice strangled with skepticism.

“No,” Regina growled through clenched teeth.

“Can… should I help?”

Even as she asked, Emma reached out again, allowing the odd extra limb of the magic she had just begun learning to control to slip towards Regina’s own.

“No!” Regina practically shrieked, but it was too late. Emma’s pale blue light had reached Regina’s violet blaze and had… gotten stuck.

“What the hell?” Emma muttered, trying to tug it back, giving up immediately on any attempt to contain Regina’s out-of-control power. Regina, for her part, had frozen completely, staring directly at Emma with an expression she couldn’t begin to decipher.

As Emma watched, stray strands of Regina’s power began leaking into her own, tracing a latticework of purple sparks down the bridge of energy that connected them. When the light reached her hands, Emma realized why Regina had frozen.

The moment Regina’s magic touched her, a flash of heat raced through her veins, whirling through her chest and pooling low and dangerous in her stomach. As though the first sparks had paved the way, the light between them blazed brighter, and a steady stream of Regina’s power began searing its way through Emma’s body. She fell to her knees, gasping.

Through gritted teeth, she managed to ask, “What is this? What’s h-happening?”

“You have  _no idea_  what you’ve done,” Regina hissed in furious reply.

Even as she spoke, the magic began spreading up along Emma’s arms and the sensation was… incredible. That  _heat,_ it… it was invasive and all-consuming and terrifying and  _incredible._  Each bit of skin which got lost in the light felt instantly more  _alive_  than before, as though every nerve ending had been coaxed awake and tasked with making Emma loose her mind in… pleasure. There was no other word for it. By the time the light had stolen its way up to her shoulders it was all Emma could do to keep her eyes open, and through her half-closed lids it didn’t look as though Regina was faring any better.

Somehow, even as the mayor’s eyes fluttered shut, she managed to keep her lips moving, words spilling out of her mouth slow and thick as dark honey. “This is  _old_  magic. My mother hunted for this all her life but I… I never believed in it.” A husky chuckle slipped between her lips. “Who would have thought. The savior and the evil queen… a perfect magical match.”

It seemed that, as long as Regina was talking, the unstoppable progression of magic across their skin had slowed, and Emma felt sane enough to try to control it once more. She could  _feel it_ , not just Regina’s magic leaking insidiously into her skin, but her own magic wrapping itself about the form of the woman across from her. It was like having a second heartbeat in the back of her mind, a pulse of life in some part of her which had never before seen the sun. As she tried once again to tug it back towards her, Regina cried out and pain lanced through Emma’s skull. Even as her head dropped to her knees in agony, Emma was grateful for the temporary reprieve from the frighteningly sexual heat working its way insistently through her.

Regina had clearly felt the pain as well, as she was glaring down at Emma from her perch on the sofa.

“Explain. Before I lose my mind,” Emma insisted.

Regina nodded, speaking quickly even as the light resumed its determined progression through Emma’s sanity. “This is the witch’s version of a royal wedding. You’re powerful and so am I, and since magic is… a being of sorts, driven by instinct, it seeks to make itself stronger. When you reached out… you invited my magic to stake a claim.”

Emma wanted to argue that she had done no such thing, but the magic had snuck past her collarbones and seemed to be settling just over her heart, and the sensation was more than distracting. She was amazed Regina could even speak.

“What you feel… that’s the incentive. It feeds us desire in the hopes we will take the bond willingly. Magical families used to bring their children together when they came of age and wait to see if anyone’s powers were compatible. It was always impossibly rare. If a match was made… there was no backing out.”

All of the magic had worked its way from her hands to her heart, except for a thin thread that still connected her to Regina. As she sat there, trying to recover from the desperate desire it had lit beneath her skin, she felt her chest begin to ache. “That pain? It’s only going to get worse if you don’t come closer,” Regina whispered. “You’re too far away.”

Unwilling to argue with someone whose magic seemed to be tied around her heart, Emma managed to stand on trembling knees and take the three necessary steps to collapse on the sofa. She was startled when Regina pressed closer to her, deliberately placing them shoulder to shoulder, but she thought she understood when she felt immediate relief from the last of the magical heat still throbbing in her abdomen like a purring dragon. She could still sense it, an energy inside of her that was not her own, but something about Regina’s touch had put it to sleep, and it was a definite improvement.

“None of this should have happened, though!” Regina muttered, staring down at her own hands, as though looking for an explanation as to their betrayal. “Magical bloodlines haven’t been pure enough for this sort of reaction in generations.”

“How do you even know this much about it if it hasn’t happened in so long?” Emma asked.

Regina’s expression darkened. “Because my mother was obsessed with it. When she couldn’t find it for herself, she tried to find it for me instead. She gave up once she made me real royalty, of course, but that didn’t take away years of being forced to try and connect to each and every strange man with magic who passed by.”

_Cora_ , Emma mused.  _Somehow she’s still meddling even from beyond the grave._  “So. How does this work, then? How do we get rid of it?”

Regina shook her head. “We don’t, Ms. Swan. If either of us attempts to use magic, we’re either going to be… punished for trying to break the connection or—” She groaned, resting her head in her hands. “—rewarded for making it stronger.”

Emma winced, recalling the sharp pain when she’d tried to reclaim her magic. While the pain was a clear warning, it was the pleasure that worried her more. If that heat started up again, she couldn’t imagine pushing it away. It didn’t exactly help that sitting this close to the other mother of her son was bringing up the unfortunate allure she had always avoided feeding. While there had always been a spark between them, it had been easy to ignore raw attraction in the face of all the anger and antagonism they had to work through. Working more closely with a side of Regina she hadn’t known existed these past few months had made everything a bit more difficult. Admitting that the mayor was a striking woman with a desirable sort of passion in everything she did was one thing; admitting there might be actual emotions involved was quite another. And now this.

“Sitting next to you seems to be working pretty well. Does this mean we just have to go everywhere holding hands now?” Emma tried to lighten the mood. “I can’t even imagine the look on Mary Margaret’s face.”

Expecting her attempt at humor to be brushed off, Emma was pleasantly surprised when Regina responded with a strangled laugh. “You know, I honestly thought I was done giving Snow reasons to want me dead.”

Emma smiled. “Yeah, well, at least this time she’ll have to come through me.”

The humor went out of Regina’s expression and was replaced with something heavier. “There’s more truth in that than you know. Killing one of us at this point might break the connection, but it might kill the other just as easily.” Regina looked… nervous.

Tentatively, Emma reached out and took hold of Regina’s hand. “I meant it, you know? This—” She gestured between them. “—sucks. I should have known better than to go messing around with magic I don’t know anything about but… I don’t want you dead. I wouldn’t want to hurt you even if it didn’t hurt me back. I—I don’t want to see you in pain.”

She paused, startled to feel the lingering magic inside of her come to life again. It was slow, this time; gentle tendrils of heat snaking their way up from the pit of her stomach into her chest. It was less… sexual, somehow, but still lovely. “What’s happening?” Emma asked.

Regina was staring at her in stunned silence. Slowly, she turned her own hand upwards and laced their fingers together. “Whatever you’re feeling and not saying… we’re being rewarded for it.”

Immediately embarrassed, Emma jerked back her hand. She regretted it instantly as a different sort of pain filled her, a hollow ache just behind her ribcage. Regina reached out, quickly taking back Emma’s hand and claiming the other in the process. “Don’t pull away,” she insisted, voice soft.

Emma struggled to calm her breathing. If the connection between them could sense the way she felt about Regina… the things she’d never given voice to even in her own head, what did that mean about Regina? Did she know? She must, considering her comment about what had woken the magic again. Emma groaned, wanting to bury her head in her palms, but someone else had possession of her hands at the moment. “Sorry,” she muttered. “How are we supposed to function like this?”

Regina was staring at her. It made Emma even more uncomfortable. “We’re not,” she replied. “As long as we both intend to complete the bond, we’ll be able to go our separate ways, though at first being too far away is still going to be… difficult.”  

“Fine!” Emma retorted. “We’ll complete the bond! Can I go now?”

Regina shook her head. “It’s not that simple. You can’t just say  _fine_  and be done with it. You have to mean it. You have to be completely okay with combining our powers… and our lives.”

Emma finally met the intensity of Regina’s stare. “Why aren’t you freaking out about this like I am?”

An apologetic smile graced Regina’s lips. “I was. Until you said that. You said… you wouldn’t want to see me in pain. You said your own mother would have to go through you to get to me. And I’m sorry if the timing is terrible but I… I suppose this isn’t the worst thing that could have happened.”

The impossibly gentle heat was building in Emma’s chest again, as though determined to fill her to the brim with warmth and leave no room for worry or anger or fear. “You… you’re okay with this? I thought you still hated me!”

“Hated you?” Regina echoed, looking genuinely confused.

“After what I did to you and Robin I… I mean… I know you said you forgave me but come on! I screwed up your whole life, your whole second chance!”

“No, you didn’t,” Regina insisted, her smile leaving Emma even more confused. “You… you woke me up. Robin is a wonderful man but… I hardly knew him. I was racing into something I thought was my destiny when really… I was just trying to replace what I thought I couldn’t have with Henry and… with you.”

Feeling the absolute truth of Regina’s words with every part of her, the only emotion that could find a foothold amid all the magic swirling between them was wonder. “You mean that,” Emma whispered, and it wasn’t a question.

It didn’t need to be. Regina heard all the things she wasn’t asking and answered with a kiss.

For a moment, it was just that, a quick brush of the softest pair of lips Emma had ever felt, but as they drew back, Emma caught a glimpse of a swirl of light between them, drawing them back together. She didn’t resist, getting lost in Regina’s kiss and wondering why it had taken a magical intervention to get this far. Regina ran a fingertip inside the open collar of Emma’s shirt, tracing her collarbone on her way to find a hold at the back of Emma’s neck. She tensed. Regina’s touch was a line of fire over her skin and in that moment, she couldn’t care less that this entire situation had been an accident of magic. She wasn’t sure either she or Regina knew fully what they wanted… but Regina’s message was clear, and Emma’s body was more than ready to respond to the invitation. She clasped Regina’s waist with both hands and allowed herself to get lost in the swirling magic and the purely human heat of Regina’s touch.

When Regina’s lips slid from her own to mark a blazing path along her jaw line, Emma found her voice. “Should we be doing this now?” Her voice cracked when Regina’s nose brushed against an impossibly sensitive spot just behind her ear.  “I’m half-drunk on your magic and out of my mind.”

Lips brushing Emma’s ear, Regina murmured, “If you were out of your mind, would you really be asking that?”

“At the very least I feel like I’m climbing out of my skin,” Emma replied.

“Good,” was Regina’s only response.

Then, she began unbuttoning Emma’s shirt, shoving it haphazardly open and trapping Emma’s arms in the process.

_Oh, hell_ , Emma thought, and it was the closest her mind came to coherent for quite some time.

Regina slid her teeth along the edge of Emma’s jaw, then pressed quick, searing kisses down the center of her throat. Emma scrambled to reclaim control of her arms, desperate to touch the woman across from her, but Regina swung one leg over her lap and pressed her farther back into the couch, making it impossible. Emma couldn’t even begin to think clearly. Her body had already been coaxed past the point of casual arousal by the magic, the connection between them stimulating her in a way she could never have imagined. Every nerve in her body was firing erratically and all she could think about was Regina touching her, but she knew the second this went any farther, she was going to lose it. “I need to slow down,” she gasped.

“No, you don’t.” Regina angled her thigh between Emma’s legs, sending a spike of heat racing directly from her clit to explode behind her eyes. “I know what you need.”

Emma groaned. The heat was unbearable. She couldn’t decide which she needed more – to lose the rest of her own clothing or to see Regina shed those tortuously sheer silken pajamas. Now that the robe was gone – she didn’t even know when that had happened – she could see the outline of Regina’s nipples pressing against the thin layer of fabric, as though straining for the nearest heat in the chilly room. Mindlessly, Emma pressed down on Regina’s thigh, arching just enough in the process to free her hands. She managed to slip them under the hem of Regina’s shirt, running her palms up along the mayor’s sides as she pushed it upwards. Regina cooperated, lifting her arms and allowing the shirt to slip over her head, and before she could tug it off her arms, Emma had dragged the back of her nails up the length of Regina’s spine and pressed her close enough to claim a nipple with her mouth.

Regina’s hiss of pleasure was the most gratifying thing Emma had ever heard, and feeling that small bit of pebbled flesh swell between her lips, Emma thought she finally understood why all the fuss about making love to a woman.

Regina’s fingers knotted in Emma’s hair, pressing her mouth more firmly against her breast. Emma was happy to oblige, tugging harder with her lips until she could feel Regina’s shoulders trembling beneath her palms. Abandoning one nipple with a quick tug of her teeth, she switched sides, offering the other the same heat as the first. Regina’s head fell back, her leg quivering distractingly where it still rested between Emma’s own. The desire to watch this woman come undone around her was the only thing left in Emma’s mind, the need for it all-consuming.  She rose unsteadily, using the hands wrapped around Regina’s back to keep them pressed together, then she managed to swap their positions on the sofa, pushing Regina back into the cushions. Impulsively, Emma dropped to her knees on the floor, impossibly grateful for the elastic waistband that allowed her to tug the bottoms of Regina’s nightwear out from under her, taking the underwear with them.

_I want to do everything_ , Emma thought in surprise, completely willing to ignore her own need in favor of giving every ounce of pleasure she could to Regina.  _There is nothing I don’t want to do with this woman, and even if this started because of magic, this, this here… this is real._

Regina’s half-lidded eyes stayed on Emma as she slipped her fingers along the center of Regina’s stomach and down between her legs. Regina’s lips parted in a silent moan, and Emma gasped as the magic she’d stopped noticing suddenly flared within her in a jolt of pure arousal, as though rewarding her for Regina’s pleasure. Even with that added incentive, Regina’s satisfaction was Emma’s greatest reward, even now.

Watching her own hand in fascination, Emma gently rolled Regina’s clit between her fingers. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” she mused, not intending to speak aloud.

“Well,” Regina gasped, “We’re doing it now.”

Emma made a strangled noise in vague amusement at the pointlessness of their words, but Regina suddenly grabbed her hand and Emma froze. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. Just… I’m too close I…”

Emma chuckled in relief, picking up speed. “And the problem is?”

Regina groaned, her lips lifting and mirroring Emma’s circles of their own volition, chasing the sort of magic not driven by any spell. Even as new to this as she was, Emma could tell Regina was right on the edge; she was desperate to satisfy her. But she wanted more than that. She wanted her touch burned into Regina’s mind, seared into her body… hell, her soul. The force of her own desire frightened her, and her grip began to relax, her hand to slow.

“Emma…” Regina moaned.

“Right here,” she whispered. Relishing the way her name spilled from Regina’s lips, Emma realized it was the first time she had been called anything but “Ms. Swan” since her return from the past. “I… I want to be inside you.”

Regina covered Emma’s hand with hers and pushed their fingers lower, curling her own until they pressed together inside. The intimate sensation was both familiar and entirely new to Emma, but being surrounded by silken heat, feeling the desperate tensing of muscles in a desire  _she_  had caused… it was a pleasure she’d never imagined. She held still as Regina pulled her own hand away, then she thrust in, slow and deep, still tracing over Regina’s clit as best she could with her thumb, and as she watched Regina begin to come undone around her, she watched as the last sparks of blue and purple magic rose away from Regina’s skin, spilling down Emma’s arm in a rush of electricity and desperate need. The last of the magic faded away and as Regina gasped out her pleasure, she was coming from nothing but Emma’s touch, while every bit of the coiled, magical heat that had poured through her exploded in Emma’s clit and made sure she came as well, coming so hard she forgot to breathe until spots danced behind her eyelids.

In that moment, Emma had never been so glad that all magic came with a price.


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up on the floor wasn’t an entirely new sensation for Emma Swan. After all, between foster care, prison, and bonds work, beds were a luxury. Still, even if not new, the sensation wasn’t exactly pleasant, and waking to see Regina Mills staring down at her from a distinctly more comfortable-looking couch was definitely new. The events of the previous evening came back in a rush, and the memory at least explained why the look in Regina’s eyes seemed to be one of amused tenderness rather than abject hatred.

Groaning as her spine protested the sleeping arrangements with an audible crack, Emma sat up and pushed aside the blanket Regina must have dropped over her. “How long have you been awake?”

“A while.”

“And you didn’t think to get me off the floor?”

Regina had the decency to look slightly chagrined, but her reply was less than apologetic. “You’re actually rather cute when you’re sleeping, Ms. Swan, and I didn’t want to wake you and ruin the illusion.”

Somehow, it didn’t surprise Emma that the mayor was a morning person. If her dry, insulting humor was already awake and firing at whatever ungodly hour this was, it definitely explained how she managed to have such a quick wit through the rest of the day. Emma, however, was not a morning person, and regardless of the light coming in through the curtains that reminded her it was probably closer to midday, her body was going to treat this as morning, and rebel.

She stood and stretched, choosing to ignore her state of partial undress in light of the circumstances, though she did fish around on the floor afterwards to find her shirt. Regina said nothing through the whole process, sitting calmly on the couch and watching Emma with a look of consideration. Emma finally sat down beside her. “So… what happens now?”

“I’m not exactly sure.” Regina’s voice was soft with uncertainty. “I checked my books while you were asleep. The bonding ceremony… there’s no way to perform it here. There are things I would need from the Enchanted Forest, things I’m nearly certain even Gold doesn’t have.”

“Wait, sex doesn’t count as bonding?” Emma asked, genuinely confused. “Then how come I don’t feel the magic anymore?”

Regina chuckled. “No. I can honestly say sex was an excellent way to assure that we were both invested in completing the bond, which means the magic is going to give us some time to finish what we started, but actually binding our magic takes more than that. The problem is, I’m not sure how much of the ritual is really about magic, and how much is about ceremony.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are spells that really need a specific ritual, like the one to contact the dead or to… curse an entire land. Then there are others which have simply been passed down for a long time of being done one way or another, but really could be done differently. Virgin sacrifices, for example. Never necessary, but often used anyway because tradition dictates.”

Emma blinked. “Please tell me this ritual doesn’t involve any sacrifices, virgin or not.”

Regina shook her head, clearly amused. “Not at all. It’s more like… a handfasting. Exchanging some words, bringing our magic together again, and a lot of faerie light and a very complicated potion, neither of which I have on hand at the moment.”

“Sounds like a wedding,” Emma mused. 

“It is a bit—” Regina stopped abruptly, sitting upright and turning towards Emma. “That’s it!” Before Emma could make sense of her words, Regina had pulled her into a quick but thoroughly disarming kiss. “You’re brilliant!”

“I-I am?” Emma stuttered.

“A wedding! This sort of handfasting ceremony really was the pagan form of a wedding. I think the ritual matters, but not the specifics. Candlelight rather than faerie light, wine instead of sagewire mead…”

“Whoa, hang on, slow down; a wedding?” Emma scrambled to catch up. “You want us to get married?” She tried not to sound as panicked as she felt. “Look, Regina, I care about you. Hell, I think we more than established that last night. But we’re not exactly friends. People don’t get married on the basis of an end to mutual dislike and the fact that you’re amazing in bed.”

“Don’t they, though?” Regina asked flippantly. “I’ve heard worse reasons. We have more going for us than most. I like you, Emma, and considering how determined I was to hate you the fact that I don’t is really kind of amazing. Don’t trivialize this. I know it isn’t ideal that we have to rush into it, but there’s something here. More than just magic.”

“What about Henry?” Emma asked, frantically clinging to her own misgivings even as Regina’s vulnerable honesty ripped holes in them one by one.

Regina’s lips twitched into a fleeting smile. “I dated a woman once, probably three months before you came to Storybrooke. She was great with Henry, but keeping any real connection during the curse was… difficult. After he found you, when he was trying to convince me that it would be a good thing to have you around, he actually told me… ‘You might even like her, you never know. You could date and then get married and we could all be a family.’ I didn’t react well, and he never mentioned it again but… Let’s just say Henry has never been opposed to the idea. Will he be surprised, after all this time? Of course, but not entirely unhappy.”

It seemed now that Regina had fixated on the marriage idea; she intended to pursue it with all the single-mindedness that had made her such a successful leader in the past.

“That was one hell of a proposal, your highness,” Emma muttered, aiming for sarcasm but sounding more resigned than anything.

“Is that a yes?”

Slowly, Emma nodded. “With reservations. Lots of reservations. You do realize how insane this is, right?”

Regina laughed. “It suits us.”

Emma couldn’t hold back a smile.

The conversation turned serious only a few moments later, when Emma asked how soon the ceremony needed to occur. “In the next three days,” was not the answer she was hoping for.

“Three days!” she spluttered.

“Well, three days before the magic thinks we’ve changed our minds and we end up having another night like this morning.”

Emma allowed herself a few choice words, but she quickly came to the same conclusion Regina had clearly already reached. While being magically coerced into mind-blowing sex wasn’t the worst thing Emma had ever experienced, it could also quickly become very inconvenient, especially without knowing exactly when the all-consuming need to be touching Regina would set in again.

“You know… maybe I’m okay with that. If we do this my way.”

Regina arched an eyebrow in question.

“Let’s do something small. Today or tomorrow. With the candles and wine and whatever else we need to satisfy the ritual, or whatever. But then I want to start over. I want to keep this under wraps until we do it right. I want to spend time with you, with you and Henry; make sure this is going to work. Then we do it for real. We tell the people we care about and, if we decide it’s something we want, then we have a real wedding. I’m all about taking care of this… magic problem as soon as possible, but you know as well as I do that isn’t the only problem we have.”

More readily that Emma had expected, Regina agreed.

Emma went home for the rest of the day, giving Regina the time she needed to set up everything for the next morning. Considering what had happened the night before, Emma was surprised at how normal everything felt. Henry was used to her keeping somewhat odd hours, so he didn’t even react to her return with more than a cheerful, “Hi, mom.”

A few times during the day, she wondered if this was deceitful, not telling her son that she was getting married to his other mother, for god’s sake, but it wasn’t like she planned this. A simple twist of fate, one of her foster-grandmothers used to say. Life loves to throw you for a loop when things are going too smoothly.

She hadn’t even thought about Hook until she was already lying in bed that night. He still thought they were dating, that she was just taking some time to hang out with Henry and the new baby. What was she supposed to say to him? Sorry, getting married tomorrow, didn’t mean to waste your time.

Well, she wasn’t going to deal with that particular bump in the road today. The marriage would have to come first. She could sort out every other part of her fucked up life later.

—-

“I sorry it has to be here,” Regina greeted her when Emma arrived at the vault. “It’s the only place designed to contain magic, and since I have no idea what happens at the end of this, I didn’t want to accidentally flatten the town.”

“Good plan,” was Emma’s strangled reply, suddenly much more nervous.

“Relax,” Regina added, tentatively resting a hand on Emma’s arm where it lay protectively crossed over her stomach. “Everything should be fine.”

Neither woman had wanted to stand on ceremony for their attire, but it seemed both had decided to look a bit more put together than Emma’s average daywear. She’d reluctantly donned a blue dress she’d once planned to wear on a date with that damn flying monkey, and Regina had shown up in one of her dark, perfectly-fitted pantsuits. “No skirt?” she asked, trying to lighten the mood and dispel her own worry.

Regina smirked. “No leather jacket?” was her reply.

Regina finished lighting the last of the candles around the chamber. Though the stone walls still afforded an eerie darkness to the space, the candlelight was soft and warm, and Regina had done a remarkable job making the place feel less like a room under a mausoleum. “Since we plan to keep this to ourselves and since we want to do it properly later, I thought we could skip a few formalities.”

“Like what?”

Regina offered her that look that said she thought Emma was being deliberately obtuse. “Like witnesses and an officiant.”

“I hope you know how this is supposed to go, then, because I can count the number of weddings I’ve been in on no hands.”

Regina gave an exasperated sigh. “As part of the curse, I am in fact a lawyer who has been admitted to the Maine Bar. I’ve performed three weddings in my time here.”

Emma blinked. “Really? How does that work out without the whole… law school thing?”

“Is that really what you want to be focused on right now?”

“Sorry I… I’m just nervous. Trying not to get cold feet.”

Regina nodded. “I understand, believe me. Come here.”

Emma allowed Regina to lead her towards the table at the far end of the chamber. When they stood behind it, the mayor pulled her slowly into her arms. For a moment, Emma was stiff, rigid, but as Regina’s warmth sunk through the haze of surreality lingering around the whole situation, Emma felt herself gradually relax. “Thank you,” she whispered in Regina’s ear.

“I know. I was feeling the same thing… too much formality, too much rush… we lost the connection.”

Emma pulled back and initiated as gentle kiss, finally relaxing completely when she felt the same spark of welcome and desire as she had the night before. Part of her had been afraid it was all magic, that whatever realness she had perceived between them had been illusory at best, but now, with the power lying dormant somewhere inside of them, she still wanted to make this work, still wanted to have this connection, still wanted Regina. “I’m okay now. I’m ready to do this.”

“Excellent.”

Though she thought the ceremony would require her full concentration, Emma found it far too easy to get lost in watching Regina. From the first words she spoke as she handed Emma an unlit candle, Emma felt the magic beginning to rise again, and it was beautiful. Regina was beautiful. The verbal command to light the wick by magic was lost, but she did it anyway, watching a perfect tongue of flame spark above the pale wax and add its small bit of warmth to the glow around them. There were words then that sounded traditional, love and devotion and till death do us part, but there were also words that made the air about them fill with power; binding and strength and unity and something dark and heady in a language she could not understand but which seemed to slip from Regina’s lips and caress her skin with a promise of forever.

There was a moment when every candle died despite the still air around them, but by then, the chamber was awash in a light more pure than any fire, and her candle fell to the floor unnoticed.

The magic drew words to her own lips, words she couldn’t hear over the piercing intensity of the fire in Regina’s eyes, but she knew the moment to echo, “I do,” and she knew it came oh, so easily to follow it with a kiss.

As their lips touched, the magic burned through them, a rush of heat and power that drew them together so tightly Emma was sure they would never be able to pull apart again. She was filling, filling, full to bursting with light and fire and Regina and just when she thought it would consume her whole, the world went silent, their kiss was just a kiss, and Emma felt tears tracing their way down her cheeks in agonizing joy at how perfectly complete she felt in this moment.

The rest could wait.


End file.
